Persistence in pioneering a laptop

Principals tell how Toshiba's T1100 became first IBM-compatible and incited a revolution.

Twenty years ago this month, Toshiba offered for sale the T1100, the world's first IBM-compatible laptop computer. The machine sparked a laptop industry that will sell 195 million units this year.

But the T1100 almost didn't happen.

Executives in Tokyo were skeptical of Toshiba's ability to successfully launch the machine, and a lack of software led one of the project's leaders to repeatedly visit a major software vendor until they agreed to release necessary applications.

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Twenty years ago this month, Toshiba offered for sale the T1100, the world's first IBM-compatible laptop computer. The machine sparked a laptop industry that will sell 195 million units this year.

But the T1100 almost didn't happen.

Executives in Tokyo were skeptical of Toshiba's ability to successfully launch the machine, and a lack of software led one of the project's leaders to repeatedly visit a major software vendor until they agreed to release necessary applications.

Portable computing wasn't new in 1985. A series of machines from companies such as Osborne, Radio Shack and Epson had been on the market, but the T1100 was the first that included a basic feature set that would become the standard for portable computers for the next 20 years: It ran off internal rechargeable batteries, had an LCD screen, a 3.5-inch floppy disk drive and, perhaps most importantly, was compatible with the IBM PC.

Toshiba already knew the importance of such compatibility. Its entry into the U.S. desktop PC market a few years earlier ended in failure because its machine lacked IBM compatibility.

In the wake of this failure, three Toshiba employees went to Los Angeles in 1983 for two months to plan the company's re-entry into the U.S. computer market. The trio worked with McKinsey & Company on the project, called "Brighter Blue," and concluded that a new desktop PC was not the way to go.

"Transportable computers were becoming popular but they were very, very, very big," says Atsutoshi Nishida, who led the project and is now an executive vice president at Toshiba (he will become president in June). "Our plan was for a clamshell-type transportable PC with an LCD and IBM compatibility."

The team returned to Tokyo but was met with skepticism. Senior management didn't believe that the market would accept such a computer under the Toshiba brand. Nishida offered the machine to other companies for them to sell, on an OEM basis, and they all declined.

The rejections didn't dent Nishida's confidence, and he persisted in pushing the idea. He finally got approval, but only after promising he could sell 10,000 in a year.

"Back then it was a very large quantity," he says.

Despite approval, management wouldn't provide any cash for development. Toshiba's PC division couldn't afford to finance the project, so Nishida committed funds from his international sales and marketing budget, recalls Nobuyuki Tanaka, one of the original engineers and today a senior vice president at Toshiba.

Prior to commercialization, the project faced another hurdle. Toshiba's desktop PC experience revealed that no one would buy a PC without software. While the T1100 was to be IBM-compatible, it was based on 3.5-inch floppy disks. At that time the industry was standardized around 5.25-inch disks, and there was no software available on the smaller versions.

"With no software it could run, our product would be just a box," Nishida says.

Nishida's first call was to Lotus Development (now a unit of IBM). A request to the European sales manager for a version of Lotus 1-2-3 on the new floppy disk was refused. A second visit resulted in refusal again, as did a third visit. Undeterred, Nishida visited the offices for a fourth time.